Does Your Doctor Still Have All His(her) Marbles?

BrooklynDodger is concerned that the medical malpractice model of discipline of the health care system may be flawed by focusing on special causes of adverse outcomes in comparison to system causes. By contrast, opponents of patients rights to malpractice compensation seek to eliminate a possibly flawed system and leave nothing in its place.

Evidence for system causes is overwhelming. This report adds to the litany of sub standard performance of the system being standard.


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Study: Veteran Doctors Not Staying Current

By Sandra G. Boodman

Washington Post February 22, 2005

It's an image enshrined in popular culture: the wise old doctor who knows how best to treat patients because of his years of clinical experience.Or does he?Not according to a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School, who analyzed 62 studies conducted over the past four decades and found precisely the opposite -- that the quality of care provided to patients was inversely related to a doctor's experience and age.

Nearly three-quarters of the studies found that older doctors were less likely to adhere to guidelines for cancer screening, to use proper medications to treat heart attacks or to adopt other evidence-based treatments.

One of the most striking results came from a 2000 study of 4,546 internists, cardiologists and family physicians, which found that patient mortality increased by 0.5 percent for every year after a doctor graduated from medical school....

Cassel said that in the largest specialty, internal medicine, about half of the 150,000 practicing internists have been grandfathered in because they passed board exams before 1990. Nationally about 87 percent of physicians are board certified.